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Robert Lord, a professor of psychology at the University of Akron, received the 2012 Distinguished Scientific Contributions Award from the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology. The national award honors the investigator who has made significant contributions to the field.

The focus is back on a Kent State faculty member with former ties to a jihadist website.

Julio Pino's shout of ''Death to Israel'' at a public lecture by a former Israeli diplomat ''was not surprising,'' said Jennifer Chestnut, executive director of the Jewish organization Hillel at Kent State, who attended the speech.

J. Wayne Blankenship, superintendent of Nordonia Hills School District for the last nine years, asked the school board last night to accept his resignation as the district attempts for the fifth time to pass a levy or face fiscal emergency and state takeover. The district has a 6 mill levy on the November 8 ballot.

"I made this decision in hopes of encouraging passage of an operating levy so desperately needed to enable the District to continue its Excellent with Distinction academic performance rating," Blankenship said in a district press release. "It saddens me greatly to sit by and watch levy after levy get defeated even after millions of dollars in cuts resulting in the elimination of academic programming. This saddens me to a point where I felt that I must do something that could possibly make a difference for the future of Nordonia Schools."

To solve the problem, researchers equipped Rubi with sensors that detected when a child might be getting too rough and triggered the robot to cry, digital tears and all. Seeing this, the children backed off, just as they typically do in interactions with one another.

Third grade teacher Shari Gardner was named Teacher of the Year last night at the Summit County Education Celebration. The Summit County Educational Service Center holds the annual event to honor area teachers and contributors to education.

Gardner has taught at Manchester's Nolley Elementary School all 23 years of her career. She is the second Teacher of the Year winner from the Manchester district in as many years.

There's a new watchdog on the block. Check out this web site dedicated to investigating the claims of "miracle schools" cited by reform activists as proof that stubborn obstacles such as poverty and inequal funding are just excuses for lazy teachers and the unions that coddle them. In fairness, reformers of all political stripes and persuasions have been prone to cherry pick "miracle" schools, teachers, principals, superintendents, whole countries (Finland!) to make their cases for or against various policies. The claims seldom survive scrutiny, if they're scrutinized.

The Vindicator in Youngstown has a strange story about two troubled charter schools that apparently were trying to relocate in the Akron area and were advertising for students in Doylestown. However, the schools were shut down by their sponsor, the Portage County Educational Service Center, before they could get off the ground. The reporter called me last week asking if I'd heard of the schools ( I hadn't). I talked with the enrollment specialist at Akron Public Schools who tracks charter schools and she said she hadn't heard of them either. However, she said sometimes the district won't find out about students who have transferred to a charter school until a month after the fact.

Corrigan M. Irwin has earned the Eagle Scout Award, the highest award in the Boy Scouts. He is a member of Troop 935, which meets at the McDonaldsville St. Paul United Methodist Church. He is the son of Scoutmaster Kevin Irwin and his wife, Stephanie.

When Ron Levant was a semi-custodial father of a preteen daughter in the 1970s, he fumbled and stumbled. He admits he didn't have a clue what to do.

That sense of inadequacy bothered him until he saw the 1979 movie Kramer vs. Kramer and realized that perhaps it wasn't him it was that men of his generation were being asked to do things for which they weren't prepared. That spawned a lifelong interest in the psychology of men.

Workers removed the solid oak feathers that adorned the head of the old Indian chief statute in front of Resnik elementary school Monday morning. They used a crane to lift the feather section of ''Chief Rotaynah'' and laid it onto a flatbed truck so it could be taken into storage before another Ohio winter sets in.

The website of Carnegie Learning, a company started by scientists at Carnegie Mellon University that sells classroom software, trumpets this promise: ''Revolutionary Math Curricula. Revolutionary Results.''

The pitch has sounded seductive to thousands of schools across the country for more than a decade. But a review by the U.S. Department of Education last year would suggest a much less alluring come-on: Undistinguished math curricula. Unproven results.

The Communications Workers of America union is trying to organize up to 600 clerical and staff members at the University of Akron.

Local President Bob Wise, a telecommunications specialist at AT&T, said UA staff has expressed ''some interest'' in joining 260 university employees in the skilled trades and crafts who already belong to the CWA.

The Society for Neuroscience chose this video as the overall winner in its brain awarenes video contest. A child narrates his discovery to learn more about his grandfather's aphasia after he suffers a stroke and can't always find the words he wants. Thanks to Daniel Lende's blog Neuroanthropology for the heads up.

Kevin Mitchell, who writes the Wiring the Brain blog has in interesting post that examines a conundrum: if the human brain, even the adult brain, can be changed through learning by experience, does it still make sense to talk about innate traits?

Mitchell considers the conundrum with examples in autism, dyslexia and dyscalculia. He suggests that effective early interventions can break the vicious cycle in which innate tendencies reduce the opportunities for experience to change the brain's wiring. Read the whole post here.

Trent Ware of Mogadore High School received the $1,000 Springfield Township Professional Fire Fighters Scholarship. The award goes yearly to a student graduating from Springfield, Mogadore, Lake, Green, Akron or Coventry who is interested in becoming an emergency medical technician or firefighter.